This is Easter weekend; last weekend, I sang in the Easter concert of First Baptist Church here in Regina as a guest soloist and chorister. The whole concert is worth listening to, but if you’d …
I put a link to this in the previous post on my Aurora-eligible work for 2025, but wanted to highlight it. This was my contribution to the Shapers of Worlds Volume V anthology, and it …
The Aurora Awards are Canada’s best-known science fiction and fantasy awards, voted on by fans every year. I’ve been fortunate enough to win twice, for Marseguro (DAW Books) (soon coming out in a new edition from Tuscany …
Put this under the category of “things I’ve meant to do for a long time”: I finally published (under my Endless Sky Books imprint) a new edition of The Haunted Horn, a modern-day middle-grade ghost …
The Shards of Excalibur audiobooks, narrated by the wonderful Elizabeth Klett, are now available again after being off the market for a short while. Best of all, while they’re once more on Audible.com and Audible.ca, you …
The official press release from the publisher says it all: Award-winning Canadian author, and host of The Worldshapers podcast, Edward Willett, is joining the Tuscany Bay Books family in 2026 with his The Helix War series. Tuscany Bay Books …
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A good year for Ransome fans!
That would be Arthur Ransome, author of the Swallows and Amazons series, one of the greatest writers of children’s books ever, and a personal favorite of mine from a very young age (I saved up my allowance and ordered the entire 12-book series, one a month, all the way from Jonathan Cape in England, when I was about 12; they have a place of honour on my office bookshelves and I’m looking forward to reading them to my daughter very soon).
And why is this a good year? Because:
Arthur Ransome fans have two theatrical performances, a film and possibly two exhibitions to look forward to over the next two years.
The National Maritime Museum Cornwall will host a Ransome Exhibition from 3 May to 11 July, featuring Nancy Blackett, the Hillyard once owned by the author and immortalised in the novel We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, and at least one of his dinghies.
Ipswich-based touring company Eastern Angles is preparing a dramatised version of We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea for July.
Film rights for Swallows and Amazons have now been agreed by Harbour Pictures and the BBC, with options on the other 11 books in the series. Filming is due to begin next year in the Lake District.
The National Theatre musical adaptation of Swallows and Amazons so far has no production date…
Always nice to know you weren’t completely crazy to love the stuff you did when you were a kid.
Swallows and Amazons for ever!
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2008/04/a-good-year-for-ransome-fans/
That would be Arthur Ransome, author of the Swallows and Amazons series, one of the greatest writers of children’s books ever, and a personal favorite of mine from a very young age (I saved up my allowance and ordered the entire 12-book series, one a month, all the way from Jonathan Cape in England, when I was about 12; they have a place of honour on my office bookshelves and I’m looking forward to reading them to my daughter very soon).
